A film department office with wall-to-ceiling shelves stacked with books and movies, film posters and framed photos scattered on the walls and a TV with a muted film playing in the background surrounds a man reminiscing about his time in Greece.
Andrew Horton, the Jeanne H. Smith Professor of Film and Media Studies, has spent his life researching, writing and teaching about Greek film and culture.
Horton has focused much of his work on his late friend and Greek director, Theo Angelopoulos. Angelopoulos' producer and widow, Phoebe Economopoulou, will be speaking at OU for a screening of his film “The Travelling Players.”
“I want my students to see that films don’t have to be sci-fi, blow ‘em up (or) thrillers that cost billions of dollars — that they can be about basic things in life, told a different way. Angelopoulos is the perfect example of this,” Horton said.
Horton’s fascination with Greek culture stemmed from teaching in Athens, Greece, during the 1970s at an American university, where he met Angelopoulos.
While teaching in Athens, Horton worked as a film critic at an English language magazine similar to the New Yorker, he said.
“I would go to all of the screenings, interviewing and getting to know the filmmakers, and it was a case of 'I was teaching a film course, and no one else was teaching one anywhere in Greece,'” Horton said.
As Horton taught and wrote about filmmaking, he said, “I was able to bring the filmmakers to class. Angelopoulos would come out. We would sit outside and talk, didn’t pay him a penny, and that’s just the spirit of Greece.”
The spirit of Greece is an idea and a quality that Horton has applied to his own life and work.
“Greece helps you understand the important things — life is short. Might as well enjoy it,” Horton said. “Eat good food. All people who say, 'You want to live to be 100? Live like they do on a Greek island.' Eat fresh fruits and enjoy meals with family and friends.”
The importance of the Greek lifestyle and the spirit of Greece is evident in Angelopoulos’ work through his storytelling.
In OU's film screening of "Travelling Players," the film's flow is different than the typical beginning, middle and end in most films. The visuals also have more weight to them than typical Hollywood films, Horton said.
“The average shot of an American film is about two to three seconds,” he said. “But Angelopoulos’ average shots are two to eight minutes.”
With the current population not used to shots lasting that long, most viewers response is to either walk out from boredom or to sit in awe, thinking about how different it is, Horton said.
“What I want the audience to see is that we get so tired of TV news and Hollywood movies. Slow down, watch this, enjoy it and enjoy life,” Horton said.
The screening of “The Traveling Players” will be Oct. 19 at 7 p.m. in the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.
